


Cold Coals

by LittleLinor



Series: From The Ashes [1]
Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-21 19:15:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21287090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLinor/pseuds/LittleLinor
Summary: What The Promare Left Behind
Relationships: Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos
Series: From The Ashes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1539028
Comments: 6
Kudos: 111





	Cold Coals

**Author's Note:**

> So I finally watched Promare, and immediately this happened. I'd like to apologise in advance.
> 
> (This is very much a "what if" rather than any claim at canon accuracy, but the idea was too fun not to explore)

Lio's skin is covered in scabs and burn scars.  
At first, Galo thought it was because he forgot. Because he thought fire wouldn't burn him, until he touched something and it made his skin sizzle. Because he was too used to feeling nothing.  
Because he's too noble and courageous and will put saving others before the harm ramming his shoulder into a burning door could do him.  
But, he realises with a wave of cold that settles in his stomach better than a Freeze Force bullet, the day he watches Lio wince in pain after grabbing a burning kettle with his bare hand and slowly, dispassionately set it down on a safe surface, it's none of that. It's that, somehow, he doesn't care.  
“Lio!”  
Lio looks at him and smiles, just slightly. He hasn't been smiling as much, recently. Back when they met, he was frowning most of the time, but when he smiled, it was like an eruption. _Everything_ was like an eruption. Now, it's just There. Barely.  
“Yes?”  
“Lio, you _have_ to stop doing this.”  
For a moment, Lio stares at him, confused—actually _confused_, damn him, as if Galo was the one acting weird, as if not reacting to being burned was actually _normal_. And then his eyes widen, and he brings his burned hand in front of him, contemplating it.  
“Oh, that? I miscalculated.” He looks up at Galo and his face softens. Somehow, that hurts too. It's too soft, too melancholic on Lio. “Sorry I worried you.”  
“M-miscalculated?”  
“It takes a while to remember what's going to actually burn me. I have to take note of what's just hot and what's too hot.”  
“Take notes!?” It doesn't make sense. He pulls Lio along towards the bathroom of their tiny, temporary container living space, and starts rummaging for some bandages. “What notes are there to take? If it feels like it burns, then it's too hot! If it _hurts_ then it's too hot! You let go and that's it! What's there to remember?”  
“… 'you let go and that's it', huh,” Lio muses, almost too quietly for Galo to hear through the noise of his overstuffed first aid kit spilling its contents on his lap.  
“That too complicated? Listen, I know you didn't feel heat until now but—”  
“What?”  
He looks up. Lio's staring at him.  
“What.” he echoes.  
“When did I ever say that?”  
“Say what?”  
“That I didn't feel heat.”  
“Well, you didn't, right? You were on fire and stuff. Never got burned. Unless you turned to ash but that's different.”  
The barely perceptible sadness in Lio's eyes makes him reconsider his wording. But it's too late. As usual, his brain is much too slow to catch up to his mouth.  
And then Lio sighs, and smiles. Softly, again.  
“I was on fire, Galo.”  
“Huh?”  
“I was on fire. We all were. Did you think we turned to ash just for the poetry of it?”  
It's like taking a dousing hose's jet right to the chest.  
“_What?!_”  
It's a hiss. A whisper. Like he can't breathe. Like if he says it any louder, it'll get more real.  
Lio's voice is normal, even. Average.  
“We burned. We felt it. The Promare kept us alive. We felt their fire. We felt other fires. And sometimes we burned ourselves out faster than we could heal.”  
Galo still can't breathe.  
“There's no 'you let go and that's it' for Burnish. It doesn't get rid of the heat. So we get used to it.”  
“… so the entire time…”  
Somehow his voice is back, before his brain can fully take in the scope of what he's just learned. Typical. Treacherous asshole of a brain.  
“We were burning, it just didn't harm us unless we went into overdrive. That's why I have to take notes. I have to relearn what's going to damage me.”  
Galo's throat locks up. Suddenly, his own scars seem laughable. Irrelevant.  
“… I'm sorry, Lio.”  
Lio shrugs.  
“It's fine. It doesn't matter now anyway.”  
“'Doesn't'—Lio, what's _wrong_ with you?”  
“What do you mean?”  
“This! Why don't—why don't you _care_? Of _course_ it matters if you get hurt.”  
“Care? No, I do care.” He pauses, tilts his head slightly as if thinking to himself. “I care, I think.”  
“You _think?!_”  
Lio sighs.  
“Does it matter?”  
“Yes!?”  
“Why do _you_ care so much?”  
“_Because I care about you!?_”  
Lio's eyes widen. He looks down. Galo kind of wants to cry.  
“… right. I'm sorry, Galo.”  
“I—why are you apologising to _me_?”  
“I hurt your feelings.”  
“What about _your_ feelings?”  
“I'm not hurt.”  
“That's not—Lio, what _happened_ to you?”  
Another questioning silence. Galo tries to calm himself.  
_Take big breaths. Inhale, exhale. Be a lake. No—be Remi. Yeah. You can do this._  
He breathes.  
“Listen. You've been really weird—ever since we started living together, really. It's like you're a different person.”  
“That's most of the time you've known me,” Lio points out.  
“I _know_, but you were different before. You used to be so…”  
His mouth, for once, goes fishing inside his brain for the appropriate wording. Very slowly.  
“On fire?” Lio suggests with a slight smile. Galo could almost call it sarcastic, if it wasn't a little too soft for that.  
“Well _yeah._ Yeah, kinda. And not just literally.”  
“Hm. Maybe.”  
“Huh?”  
“It makes sense.”  
“Well not to me.” He sighs. “Enlighten me?”  
To his relief, Lio nods. That's one thing that hasn't changed, at least. How patient he can be, sometimes. How willing he is to explain things when Galo doesn't understand them.  
Even when they were enemies, Lio took the time to explain. Galo's life would have been very different, if he hadn't. If he hadn't had that patience, that willingness to try, even if he didn't know if Galo would listen.  
If that hasn't changed, Galo refuses to believe that this Lio really became all that different. So something must have happened.  
He wants to know. He wants to _understand_.  
“What do you think it takes to control one's Burnish powers?”  
“Insane pain resistance, apparently,” Galo sighs. He takes Lio's hand, and tries not to wince as he wraps the self-cooling bandage around it. “Can't believe I didn't know that—hell, even the pizza guy. He was dealing with fire all the time? Now I feel bad. His pizzas were delicious, but if it was hurting him…”  
“It would have hurt him regardless. At least doing something with it makes us feel alive.”  
“… oh.”  
Lio smiles slightly.  
“Feeling useful… is good, when your very existence feels destructive.”  
Galo thinks about Burning Rescue. About Lio ramming a burning door open. About him, leading the Burnish, protecting them with everything he has. Burning.  
He wraps Lio's hand, and wishes he could wrap his arms around him instead.  
“Pain tolerance isn't the only thing,” Lio continues.  
“Yeah?” Galo asks, quiet. Focusing on his work. On healing.  
“Our emotions feed the Promare. And in return, the Promare fed our emotions. You've seen what happens when that goes overboard.”  
“You lose control, right—wait. What do you mean they fed you?”  
“Exactly what I said. The Promare amplify human emotion. They give it shape. When you start feeling something… they feel it too. And they whisper to each other.”  
Galo stays silent. He's done, now, the bandage neatly tied and absorbing the heat radiating from Lio's hand, but he can't move. Doesn't want to move. Doesn't want to breathe.  
“They whisper to each other, and then whisper back, again and again. Until it's all you can hear. Your own anger—or fear, or sadness. Or happiness.” Galo can't bear to look at his face, and keeps staring at his hand instead. “You learn to keep that under control, too.”  
“… but they're gone now.”  
“Yes. It's… very quiet.”  
Understanding dawns on him slowly, quietly, like a sunrise, or the comfortable drowsiness one gets after eating too much pizza. It's hard to put words on it. But he understands, in the pit of his stomach.  
This time, he can't hold himself back. He stands, the rest of his supplies falling from his lap, and wraps himself around Lio, tight.  
“G-Galo?”  
Galo swallows. He can't let his voice tremble. What would Lio think of him? More importantly, he'd probably start worrying about him instead again.  
“… I can't just share my burning spirit with you, can I?”  
To his surprise, Lio laughs lightly.  
“Unfortunately not.” He wraps his own arms around Galo's back, and Galo feels very small, suddenly. He's not sure how Lio does it. He doesn't have that armour anymore. “… does it matter that much? I'm alive. I didn't have to kill innocents. The Earth didn't explode. I'm happy enough.”  
When Lio says it like that, he can't quite deny it. It makes sense.  
But just because it makes sense doesn't mean it's _right_.  
“You shouldn't have to be 'happy enough'.”  
“Hm?”  
“I want you to be _really_ happy. To really feel it.”  
“… life isn't perfect, Galo.”  
“That's something Kray would have said.”  
Lio tenses. He pushes away from Galo, and for a second, Galo thinks he's gone too far. That in trying to wake him up, he's actually _hurt_ him.  
But the look Lio gives him is offended. Angry.  
He opens his mouth. Closes it again.  
… and then pouts.  
It's the most emotion Galo has seen on his face in _weeks_.  
“… fine. You're right. I'll deal with it. Just _don't compare me to Kray Foresight ever again._”  
“Don't act like him and I won't. So, does that mean I can try sharing the burning spirit after all?”  
Lio rolls his eyes.  
“You can _try_. I don't promise anything.”  
Galo wraps his arms around him again. Around his waist. This time, Lio doesn't push away.  
“Fine by me. I'll keep coming at you until I win.”  
Lio sighs.  
“You really are a hotheaded idiot,” he says, pulling Galo's head close, their lips just a breath apart.  
Galo smiles. That's one fire he's okay with starting. Maybe those embers will light up Lio's heart again, if he fans them enough.  
He lets Lio close the distance.  
“The greatest in the galaxy.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry Remi, I still love you.
> 
> As you can probably guess, Galo's solution is going to be... hot and spicy.  
(I'll probably write it)


End file.
